Is That Alright?
by RosesBud
Summary: Rose, post Doomsday. Time to get on with her life? Only rated T for one swear word better safe than sorry though hey?


Disclaimer: Doctor Who belongs to the BBC.

This is the first thing I've written in ages after having terrible writer's block - so be kind! The lyrics at the top are from '9 Crimes', by Damien Rice. I'm not really in to songfics but I came up with this when I was listening to that so it seemed only fair I include them!

**Is That Alright?**

_'Leave me out with the waste  
This is not what I do  
It's the wrong kind of place  
To be thinking of you  
It's the wrong time  
For somebody new'_

The first time Rose laid eyes on Danny Jones she hardly registered his existence, beyond the fact that he was next in line in the queue at lunch and he was taking too long deciding between chips and a jacket potato. It was an easy choice for her. Jacket potato every time.

The second time she saw him, she thought she'd never met him before. That's how much she'd noticed him the first time. She thought he wasn't like the other blokes in accounts, i.e. he was under fifty and didn't smell of Old Spice. She didn't notice much else.

The third time, she looked up from a particularly tedious file on a possible small craft found somewhere in Powys – surely they should have someone nearer Wales that could deal with such things for her – and caught him looking her way. He looked away again quickly enough, but not before she noticed he had nice hair. Dark auburn and thick, in a good way.

The fourth time she saw him she was late for work and literally bumped in to him in the foyer downstairs.

"Lift's are fucked," he told her, and smiled.

"Tell me something new," she replied and smiled in return. She noticed he sounded Irish, had twinkly, dark blue eyes and wicked dimples. She still didn't know his name.

The fifth time she saw him, she asked, because she felt it was getting to the point where it would be rude not to.

"Danny Jones," he told her. "And you're Rose Tyler." Before she'd had a chance to say anything else. She noticed her stomach give a little flip, the sort it hadn't for the longest time. A very very gentle flip, she told herself.

"You should be Welsh with a name like that," she told him.

The sixth time Rose saw Danny Jones he was drinking coffee in the Starbucks around the corner, sat opposite a beautiful black girl. Rose had noticed that her heart had sunk a little. And there she was, not even having noticed it had risen in the first place. She was furious with herself, and muttered that she was an idiot all the way back to the office. She didn't notice the odd looks she got.

The seventh time she saw him was later that day in the corridor on the next floor down.

"And this is storage mainly," she heard him say. He was with the beautiful girl again. "Oh hi Rose!" he had said, when he spotted her walking their way. "This is Lisa, she's new downstairs. She's stuck with me as her mentor, poor girl."

Rose grinned. "Nice to meet you," she told Lisa. She really meant it. She could have kissed her. She noticed that she walked all the way back to her office on cushions of air.

The eighth time she saw him, Mickey had dragged her to the nearest pub for a couple of drinks after work. Danny was paying for a couple of pints when they got to the bar.

"Hello!" he said and they joined him and his friend at their table. Turned out Mickey knew the friend from Acquisitions and they were soon engrossed in a conversation about Tarluvian rocket launchers. Rose noticed that she found Danny very easy to talk to. She didn't notice time passing and before she knew it the landlord called last orders.

The ninth time Rose saw Danny Jones he came to see her on purpose. She emerged from a hideously boring section meeting to find him perched on the end of her desk, trying to balance her stapler on his nose.

She giggled and it fell off.

"Aw!" he exclaimed. "I nearly lasted a minute that time."

"Rubbish, more like ten seconds," she told him.

"Fancy going out for something to eat later?" he blurted.

Rose noticed a blush rising on her cheeks. She nodded, and smiled happily.

The tenth time Rose saw Danny she was late for their date. She'd spent ages getting ready, and had changed her top three times, unsure what to wear. She'd done her make up and re-done it and wondered what the hell had gotten in to her. And then she'd realised. For the first time since finding herself in this universe, she'd noticed someone. Actually noticed someone. And it scared the hell out of her.

When she got to the restaurant, she could see Danny waiting at their table as she walked in. He was fiddling with his cutlery, trying to get two forks to fit together so he could reach across and 'fish' a napkin off the opposite side of the table. She noticed something she hadn't before as she watched him, sat in his suit, hair gelled up like it wasn't in work. He reminded her of someone. Someone who had the same restless energy about them, and had once had similarly twinkly blue eyes. She took a deep breath and made her way over.

.-.-.-.

That night, Rose tucked her flowery duvet about her and propped her diary on her knee. It had been her counsellor that had suggested writing down her thoughts in it, as if she could talk to the Doctor. It had felt pretty ridiculous at first, but she'd found it had helped in the end.

Tonight it was late and she was sleepy from the wine at dinner. She only wrote a few words.

_I think I've met someone._

_Is that alright?_


End file.
